I'm trying to determine if I can shutdown OWA without that action affecting the BESx functionality.

When we investigated BESx - the AT&T rep said - if you have OWA setup - then you are just about done with the setup of BESx. Right/Wrong or otherwise - he's planted a thought in my head that OWA is a pre-requisite for BESx.

cant see any reference to it anywhere i tried bes but could not get i too work with or without owa

this is from blackberry's site

Prerequisites: Installing the BlackBerry Enterprise Serversoftware

Verify that the Windows® account that you use to install the BlackBerry® Enterprise Server software is assigned the local administrator permission on the computer that you perform the installation process on.

Verify that the Windows account that you want to use to install the BlackBerry Enterprise Server software is not a member of the Domain Admins group in Microsoft® Active Directory®.

In a Microsoft® Exchange 2003 environment, to start the MAPI subsystem, open the Microsoft Exchange System Manager.

If your organization's domain controllers are running on Windows Server® 2008, verify that the number of NSPI connections that the BlackBerry Enterprise Server can make to the Microsoft® Exchange Server meets the requirements of your organization. For more information, visit www.blackberry.com/btsc to read KB17325 and visit http://support.microsoft.com to read article 949469.

Retrieve the following information:

BlackBerry® CAL key

SRP host (in BlackBerry Enterprise Server version 5.0 and later, the format of the SRP host is different from earlier versions)

SRP identifier

SRP key

computer name and port number of the instant messaging server (use the virtual server name and port number where the AJAX Service is installed, if applicable)

computer name and port number of the proxy server (if applicable)

Add the blackberry.net domain to the permitted lists in the antivirus application or anti-spam application that the messaging server or gateway uses.

If your organization uses a proxy server for Internet access, get the credentials for the proxy server.

Verify that you installed the appropriate languages and text services on the computer that you use to install theBlackBerry Enterprise Server.

If you want to install Microsoft® SQL Server® 2005 Express Edition SP3 on a computer that does not host anyBlackBerry Enterprise Server components, you can navigate to the Tools folder in the BlackBerry Enterprise Server installation files and run Sqlexpr.exe.

If you are installing the BlackBerry Administration Service, verify that the computers that host the BlackBerry Administration Service and BlackBerry Configuration Database are not separated by a WAN bridge.

If you are performing the installation on a computer that has more than one NIC, verify that the production NIC is first in the bind order in the Windows network settings.